N/A

Interesting premise, iffy execution

TW: Eating Disorders

This book pretty much has two plots, both of which revolve around a high school girl named Madoka. The first plot is about how she starves herself in order to cause her periods to stop, as she doesn't like them. The second is about her conflict with her lesbian girlfriend who outed their relationship on social media. Both of these stories sound interesting on their own, but when combined together they just creates a weird and confusing story that does neither of these themes justice. Another issue was that a lot of the time it felt like the author just had a list of "things that the younguns like" and they were checking them off as they added them to the story. There was a lot of unnecessarily detailed explanations of things like LINE stickers and stuff. Not to mention that COVID was randomly brought in near the middle-end of the book, as if the author started writing it before the pandemic and decided to add it in last minute. I was expecting a lot more depth into Madoka's thoughts, considering the premise, but anything that was there was remarkably shallow and not very well thought out. There was a fair share of interesting/suspenseful parts that kept me hooked enough to not drop it, hence the higher entertainment rating, but overall I can't say it was an especially good book.

Language wise, this is just standard N2 level modern writing. There is little furigana except over hyougai kanji, but there isn't enough complex vocab for it to make any difference.